Because one player alone in the NBA can change so much for their team. Players can't carry their teams in the NFL or in the MLB.
Minnesota has been having a Super Lottery team for the last 15 years... No one intervened with them...
As has been said many times already, the NBA must eliminate max contracts to really strike against superteams. This won't happen.
I'm surprised by the number of people who are completely against superteams, I really thought option C would dominate. Shows how important parity really is, I mean its great that "my team" be the superteam but the fact is the majority of fans would be left in the cold. Also I don't think eliminating max contracts would strike against superteams, GMs will just offer longer contract 10-15 year deals, that's whats happened in hockey/baseball.
Hate the superteam concept. Back in the glory days of the NBA (the 1990s) most of the great teams had just one superstar, an above-average second option, and a bunch of role-players to fill out the roster... and you know what? It was awesome. Every team had a meal ticket. Even if your team sucked, it probably still had a single wicked player to keep you interested. Bulls Superstar: Michael Jordan Next best: Scotty Pippen Jazz Superstar: Karl Malone Next best: John Stockton Sonics Superstar: Shawn Kemp Next best: Gary Payton (can argue he's the superstar and Kemp is next best) Pacers Superstar: Reggie Miller Next best: Rik Smits Knicks Superstar: Patrick Ewing Next best: Allan Houston Magic Superstar: Shaq O'Neal Next best: Penny Hardaway Heat Superstar: Alonzo Mourning Next best: Tim Hardaway Spurs Superstar: Tim Duncan Next best: David Robinson Nuggets Superstar: Dikembe Mutombo Next best: ? Kings Superstar: Chris Webber Next best: Mitch Richmond TWolves Superstar: Kevin Garnett Next best: Stephon Marbury Bucks Superstar: Glenn Robinson Next best: Vin Baker The modern trend towards all the awesome players gravitating towards only a few teams takes away from that. Right now there are several teams in the NBA without a true franchise player. For example, Bosh left, so if I'm a Raptors fan, whose jersey am I going to buy now? Nobody's!
The Rockets had a super-star team. Remember Dream/Drexler/Barkley? Remember when Barkley took a giant paycut so the Rockets could bring in Pippen? They just didn't play like a super-star team. It's not the superteams themselves that's the problem, but how they are assembled. When a team puts together a bunch of talent with smart management and executing fair trades and getting lucky, that's great. But, when your team gets to profit (talent-wise) from sweetheart deals and lopsided trades under duress that shut out bids from other teams, that's not cool. So Boston's Big 3 was fairly acquired. LA's old (dysfunctional) Big 4 with Payton/Malone was not. Miami's superfriends was not. I don't think it's great. But the league just screwed the pooch on fixing it. They tried to fix it in the CBA, but folded to the demands of the players. If they put parity above BRI% on their negotiating priority list, they could have fixed the problem. Now, you can't fix it for another 6 years.
the glory days when one team won 6 of 8 titles and (our logical arguments to the contrary aside) could have maybe won 8 in a row? were there magically more franchise players back then? because i'm pretty sure plenty of teams didn't have franchise players back in the 90's. and the glory days of the 80's that resurrected the league were basically achieved on the back of 2 superteams. the nba's peak was achieved with a superteam that won 72 and 69 games in back to back years (apparently the heat winning 58 was just too much to take). the shaq/kobe lakers drew all sorts of interest. and now the heat's superteam sent ratings soaring. people's keyboards say they don't like superteams but their eyeballs and wallets seem to disagree.
There's already a super team. By not allowing more super teams you allow the super team to have the advantage. Simple as that.
Do I think it's good for the NBA and would encourage it? Hell no. Would I be happy if the Rockets were the superteam? Hell yeah. It is what it is. You can't stop it. Well...except this time.
I don't mind teams getting the ability to acquire multiple max players through clever cap management. More power to them. I hate the aftershocks it's spawned of (Player X in non-superteam) stomping his feet and demanding an immediate trade to (capped-out borderline contender) to form a superteam despite the fact that he signed a contract to play for (non-superteam) of his own free will for (Y) more years.
